Kristina Holmberg

Perversity of enjoyment? Preschool music activities go neoliberal

Abstract There is a lack of empirical studies that examine the influence of neoliberal ideas in preschool music and teaching. Neoliberal ideas have primarily been studied in a broader educational perspective and related to preschool policy reforms. The aim of this paper is to study preschool teachers’ rhetoric concerning music contents and music activities related to neoliberal ideas. Data consist of group conversations with preschool teachers and of video observations of daily music activities, at one preschool in Sweden. Discursive psychology has been used as a micro-sociological methodological approach. The findings show that music in this preschool is characterized by popular music, and varied consequences for knowledge content and early childhood learning are highlighted and analyzed. Also, it is argued that neoliberal ideas, in varied ways, determine the establishment of music content. For many reasons, rhetoric concerning the choice of musical content is of great importance to the field of preschool education. For example, it is essential to music education research and to preschool teachers’ everyday work, as it can improve teaching and learning qualities and become a knowledge contribution in society at large.

Quality and Knowledge Content in Music Activities in Preschool: The Impact of Human Materiality Combinations.

ABSTRACT Traditionally, pedagogical research has been child centered, where materialities often have been considered as objects and tools. However, in recent posthuman research, attempts have been made to consider human materiality combinations to have impact on pedagogical activities in preschool, but to a large extent music as an issue has been neglected. Therefore, the aim of this research study is to discuss pedagogical quality and knowledge content in music activities in preschool by focusing on combinations of human and materiality subjects as “cyborgs.” Particularly, this is essential for preschool, teacher education, and research, contributing alternative understandings of learning settings. A theoretical framework emanates from posthumanist theories, where the authors apply methodological concepts used in their earlier work to study music activities. The empirical material was produced in Spring 2013. The analysis of video observations identifies two different characters of a cyborg, the guitar-human, and the CD human having quite different impacts on the music activities. Nevertheless, they have in common that they create intensities with the children, where entanglements between human and materiality become the activity. Finally, the cyborgs are discussed, where issues and dilemmas related to pedagogical quality, knowledge content, agency, and competence are addressed.